This invention relates to grinding wheel dressers, particularly to grinding wheel dressers integratable with a grinding apparatus having a grinding wheel.
Grinding apparatuses are widely used and enjoy a great variety of applications. One application is in the sharpening of saw blades used in sawmills. That application, like many others, is characterized by the concurrent needs for both high production and high precision. The saw blades are continuous bands, approximately 32 feet in length and about eleven inches high, and generally are formed from saw-grade steel. In sharpening the cutting surface of the blade, e.g. the gullets and lands of the band's multitudinous teeth, saw-sharpening machines typically are used, wherein the blade is disposed in a horizontal plane so that the cutting surface is vertically directed and the blade is rotationally cycled through a grinding apparatus. As the blade is cycled through the machine, the grinding apparatus is driven into the gullets and over the lands of each tooth.
Typically, the sharpening machine's grinding wheel is dressed by hand. Dressing by hand requires that the grinding wheel be disengaged from the saw blade, that is, sharpening of the saw blade cannot be continued while dressing the wheel, thereby impeding productivity. In addition, dressing by hand, even when performed by an expert, achieves less than desirable precision which, together with the volume of grinding, requires the wheel to be dressed and redressed during the sharpening of each saw blade.
Grinding wheel dressing devices generally have not been employed in this application, because to do so has also required that the sharpening process be halted for undesirably long periods. Conventional dressing devices have not been employed, particularly because they are not adapted for dressing the grinding wheel in selectable alternation with use of the grinding wheel to sharpen the blade. That is, conventional dressing devices are subject to undesirable limitations, including that they generally must be installed and uninstalled for each dressing operation, if installable at all, and if not installable the grinding wheel must be removed from the grinding apparatus and brought to the dressing device at a remote location. Thence, conventional dressing devices, when useable, can introduce undesireably long delays and, even so, generally require substantial alignment in each case to achieve high precision dressing of the grinding wheel. These problems result, in part, because conventional dressing devices tend to be bulky and heavy, or must be installed in a location that precludes use of the grinding apparatus, such as on a table or platform disposed between the grinding apparatus and the user, or both. Conventional dressing apparatuses can be found in Stewart U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,158 and Grabowski U.S. Pat. No. 3,372,687.
The foregoing limitations of conventional dressing devices are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather are only exemplary of those which tend to impair the effectiveness of these conventional devices. Nevertheless, the foregoing limitations are sufficient to demonstrate that conventional dressing devices are not altogether satisfactory.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved grinding wheel dresser that overcomes these and other limitations of conventional dressing devices.